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| Cicada (Brood II) court Wikipedia |
It's going to be a noisy summer - the cicadas (Brood II) are
back from their last appearance in 1996. Do not reach for the bug spray -
they won't harm you or your plants or your pets (unless your feckless Lhasa Apso
eats 14 of them but he'll only throw up.) Perfectly harmless except to
your ears.
I opened up my pond/waterfall contraption and released my poor
fed-up-to-here-with-this-tiny aquarium goldfish. They've spent the last
two days surfing in the waterfall led by Diva Gloriana of the veil-tail& the
red, gold and black movie-star body. (And yes, in spite of their tiny
brains they are capable of inventing and having, fun.) The folks that
built my boulder falls got an "A" for engineering and a "D-" in rock placement
(and I thought I was being nice by vacating myself from the actual
construction). So I have a big pile of rocks glued to each other by what
looks like dog puke. My job which I've already started is to chip away the
extra plastic glue & fill the many unnatural looking holes with a mixture of
dirt and compost and planting these little gardens with sedums. I'm
heartened that many of the plants beneath the fountain that I tried to move,
survived and are emerging only slightly bedraggled. The twin-leaf and the
giant lilies made it! There are several bare areas around the falls that
I'm going to plant with columbines and johnny-jump-ups. I'm putting some
pink, purple and red hollyhocks behind the falls from seeds I got from my sister
in Kansas.
Other garden plans - all new perennials will go in pots to get
established in my over-crowded yard. The cannas have been split up to go
in separate planters; the columbine that's come up in a crack in the patio
for 3 years is back but being much put upon by Nova, my tenent's white
husky. Nice dog but he lives to pee. I built a little brick wall
around the beleaguered posie & surrounded it by pots of plants. Nova,
by the way was drinking from the pond, and was so surprised by the fish (new to
him) that he fell in. I do appreciate the fact that he puts the fear of
God in the resident (not for long I hope) rats. He really wants those
tasty critters. He's named them Hors d'oeuvre #1 & Hors d'oeuvre
#2.
I'm planting a whole patio container with borage. I
recommend it: A) for drinks, B) for bright blue flowers and C) because
bees love it. I'm also planting some mints up for my tenants who seem to
have an uncanny knack for knowing what's good in alcoholic drinks.
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| Borage courtesy Wikipedia |
My Virginia bluebells have spread around even tho' there's not
as much shade as there used to be. I see baby Indian balsams everywhere
including in the compost heap. (These are the emigrant impatiens from Asia
that are related to our native jewelweed.) The resident glamerous thugs -
painter's palette falopia, purple shiso/beefsteak plant/perilla and pokeweed
have yet to make their appearance. I like serendipity. My 5 foot
tall garden pagoda has attracted all by itself a tiny leafed ivy which has
twined in and out of its windows.
The blue squill are spreading around nicely but I need to put
more species tulips about. And when did I plant red tulips? (Not to
mention a 5 foot tall orange fritillaria.)
I've noticed a few nefarious things in spring garden
catalogs: one touted a Piet Oudolf type of landscaping a la Millenium Park
in Chicago using native grasses and native perennials. Yeah, yeah, yeah
and both the pictures and the write-up had plenty of agapanthus, aka
lily-of-the-Nile. Beautiful but no native. Another catalog showed a
sample multi-plant selection that one bought as a group. Some of the
plants were lupines but they looked a little odd: they had been
photo-shopped so that the medium sized plant looked the size of lilac
bushes.
Here's my recipe for this month. It's called "Japanese
Pancakes" and it's a savory, not a sweet dish. It is designed for
left-overs, rather like chop suey or fried rice are. It is a Japanese comfort
food. I got it from the mother of a childhood friend of mine, Jimmy
Roehrig. His mom, Meo Roehrig, was a Japanese war-bride. She
doctored this traditional recipe for her American husband and her half-American
kids.
Ingredients: several cups of flour (any kind - I use wheat), a whole onion
or several green
onions,
an egg or two, a can of beef gravy, soy sauce, left-overs from a meat or
vegetable
dish (Chinese take-out like beef and broccoli is excellent), cooking
oil.
To do: Chop onion(s), mix with egg(s), a little soy, flour and
left-overs. Make into patties
about the size of a fried egg (but they'll be thicker). Fry both side till
light brown. Thin the
gravy in a sauce pan with soy to taste. Serve over pancakes.
Bambi - beware! The NY Times reports we are a finger
length away from a marketable flying garden drone that would chase deer or
woodchucks or the like off. You can already get a plastic owl that turns
& glares at intruders. Waiting in the wings, already invented, is a
sensor for a Twitter message from your house plant that says "Water me
please."
~ The Fairy Gardener
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